Sends specimens of Pinguicula and observations made on them. [See Insectivorous plants, pp. 390–1.]

Reports results [partly excised] of examination of fibro-cartilage subjected to artificial gastric juice and to Drosera secretion. [See Insectivorous plants, pp. 104–5.]

Sets out some of his ideas on the effects of disuse on an organ. Disuse as a cause of reduction.

On hearing of CD’s work with Drosera, tells of his experiment showing extreme sensitivity of the iris of a dog’s eye to atropine. [See Insectivorous plants, p. 173.]

Thanks for Drosophyllum. No longer needs Utricularia.

Discusses specimens of Utricularia.

Mentions JR’s work on desmids [The British Desmidieae [Desmidiae!?] (1848)].

Suggests experiments to try [with Nepenthes]. Asks JDH to test whether cabbage seeds and peas exposed to the ferment germinate.

Discusses effect of atropine solution on eye,

and effect of phosphate of ammonia solution on gland of Drosera.

Would like to see work by T. W. Engelmann and possibly one by Dr De Ruyter.

Asks what can be the meaning of appendages to tips of leaflets of enclosed Acacia or Mimosa.

Is at fibrin today.

Michael Foster suggests coagulation of protoplasm may be diseased, not digestive, symptom.

F. M. Balfour is at Kew today.

The Acacia must be Belt’s "Bulls’ horns".

The complexity of Utricularia has driven Frank and CD almost mad. Suspects it is necrophagous, i.e., it cannot digest, but absorbs decaying animal matter.

Foster is certainly in error. Every insect that Drosera catches causes aggregation.

She and her father have been counting insect remains on Pinguicula hairs.

Thanks GJR for his letter, regrets pressure of other work prevents his giving GJR’s remarks the attention they deserve. GJR makes clearer how an organ that has started to decrease will go on decreasing.

Two Nepenthes have devoured two pieces of fibrin [sketch shows size] in three days.

Has CD any objection to JDH’s giving an account of CD’s Drosera observations at Belfast [BAAS meeting] in a résumé of pitcher-plant results ["Address to the department of botany and zoology", Rep. BAAS 44 (1874): 102–16]?

WED encloses a letter from H. M. Wilkinson about Utricularia and sundew.

H. M. Wilkinson has examined bladders of Utricularia; doubts that they absorb or digest insects.

H. M. Wilkinson describes dragonfly trapped by sundew [Drosera].

"It is grand about Nepenthes."

JDH is welcome to notice in any way any of CD’s published or unpublished results with insectivorous plants. Gives an abstract of his observations on Drosera.

Thanks CD for Coral reefs [2d ed. (1874)].

JDD will correct his misunderstanding of CD on one point in the next edition of his book [Corals and coral islands].

Suggests CD consult Charles Wilkes’s Narrative [1844] for more accurate observations on Pacific islands.

Thanks for CD’s son’s observations

and for allowing DAS to visit Down.

Is glad CD approves of his book;

has not yet done any more experiments on snake poison.

Asks for the specific gravity of common phosphate of ammonia.

Stupefied by CD’s trouble and kindness. All he wanted for Belfast meeting was assurance that mention of published work on Drosera, etc., in Nature, etc., would not interfere with CD’s book.

Would like his Nepenthes results to go to CD or to Royal Society, but prefers CD take them.

Cephalotus very puzzling.

Peas and cabbage grow twice as fast after two days’ immersion in Nepenthes as when placed in distilled water, but four days’ immersion seems to kill them.

Has a splendid Australian Drosera twice as big as D. rotundifolia.